Bombing, shooting rock Iraq after deadly car bomb

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By Mohammed Tawfeeq, CNN

BAGHDAD (CNN) — A bombing and a shooting left five dead in Iraq Tuesday, the latest violence in a country beset by sectarian and political tension.

Four people died and 25 were injured when a car bomb exploded near a busy intersection at the edge of Sadr City in eastern Baghdad — a densely populated Shiite district.

In the northern city of Mosul, attackers gunned down a Nineveh province intelligence official in a drive-by shooting, killing him, police said.

Over the past several weeks, there’s been an increase in violence across Iraq, largely stemming from Sunni-Shiite discord. On Monday, at least 57 people were killed and 190 wounded in a wave of attacks in Baghdad and other cities, police said.

The Monday carnage drew condemnation from the U.N. special representative in Iraq

“I once again urge all Iraqi leaders to do everything possible to protect Iraqi civilians. It is their responsibility to stop the bloodshed now,” Martin Kobler said in a statement Tuesday.

“It is the politicians’ responsibility to act immediately and to engage in dialogue to resolve the political impasse and not let terrorists benefit from their political differences. We will continue to remind the leaders of Iraq that the country will slide into a dangerous unknown if they do not take immediate action.”

Sunni Arabs had more political clout in Iraq during Saddam Hussein’s rule until his government was deposed in 2003 after the U.S.-led invasion.

Sunnis have long felt politically marginalized under a Shiite-led government in the post-Saddam era. According to the CIA World Factbook, around two-thirds of Iraq’s nearly 32 million people are Shiite and roughly a third are Sunni. There is also a small percentage of Christians and members of other religious groups that make up the population.